CHAPTER XIV
"Frank," said Mrs. Sherman one Sunday morning, some weeks later, stopping her brother on his way to the door, "can you spare me a few moments? I've something very important I want to discuss with you. I want you to help me with suggestions and advice in a matter that very closely concerns some one in whom I'm greatly interested."
Mr. Ronald paused. "Meaning?" he suggested.
"I don't know that I ought to tell you. You see, it's—it's confidential."
"Suggestions and advice are foolish things to give, Catherine. They are seldom taken, never thanked for."
"Well, in this case mine have been actually solicited. And I feel I ought to do something, because, in a way, I'm more or less responsible for the—the imbroglio."
Slipping her hand through his arm, she led him back into the library.
"You see, it's this way. Perhaps, after all, it will be better, simpler, if I don't try to beat about the bush. Amy Pelham has been terribly devoted to Mr. Van Brandt for ever so long—oh, quite six months. And he has been rather attentive, though I can't say he struck me as very much in love. You know she asked me out to Tuxedo not long ago. She wanted me to watch him and tell her if I thought he was serious. Well, I watched him, but I couldn't say I thought he was serious. However, you never can tell. Men are so extraordinary! They sometimes masquerade so, their own mothers wouldn't know them."
"Or their sisters."
"What did you say?"
"Nothing worth repeating. Go on with your story."
"Well, then, one evening she brought him here, you remember. I'd asked him to come, when I was in Tuxedo, and he evidently wanted to do so, for he proposed to Amy that she bring him. Of course, I'd no idea he and Miss Lang had ever met before, and when I innocently ordered her in, I did it simply because Radcliffe was refractory and refused to come without her, and I couldn't have a scene before guests."
"Well?"
"I didn't know Mr. Van Brandt came from Grand Rapids. How should I? One never thinks of those little, provincial towns as having any society."
"You dear insular, insolent New Yorker."
"Well, you may jeer as much as you like, but that's the way one feels. I didn't know that, as Martha says, he was 'formerly born' in Michigan. I just took him for granted, as one does people one meets in our best houses. He's evidently of good stock, he has money (not a fortune, perhaps, but enough), he's handsome, and he's seen everywhere with the smartest people in town."
"Well?"
"Well, naturally Amy doesn't want to lose him, especially as she's really awfully fond of him and he is uncommonly attractive, you know."
"Well?"
"It looks as if that one glimpse of Miss Lang had been enough to upset everything for Amy. He's hardly been there since."
"And what does she propose to do about it?"
"She doesn't know what to do about it. That's where my suggestions and advice are to come in."
"I see."
"Of course, we can't be certain, but from what Bob Van Brandt has dropped and from what Amy has been able to gather from other sources, from people who knew Miss Lang and him in their native burg, he was attached to her when she was no more than a kiddie. Then, when they grew up, he came East and she went abroad, and they lost sight of each other. But, as I say, that one glimpse of her was enough to ignite the old flame. You must have seen yourself how frankly, openly he showed his feeling that night."
"Well?"
"What is one to do about it?"
"Do about what?"
"Why—the whole thing! Don't you see, I'm responsible in a way. If I hadn't called Miss Lang in, Bob Van Brandt wouldn't have known she was here, and then he would have kept on with Amy. Now he's dropped her it's up to me to make it up to her somehow."
"It's up to you to make what up to Amy?"
"How dense you are! Why, the loss of Bob Van Brandt."
"But if she didn't have him, how could she lose him?"
"She didn't exactly have him, but she had a fighting chance."
"And she wants to fight?"
"I think she'd be willing to fight, if she saw her way to winning out."
"Winning out against Miss Lang?"
"Yes, if you want to put it so brutally."
"I see you are assuming that Miss Lang is keen about Van Brandt."
"Would you wonder if she were? It would be her salvation. Of course, I don't feel about her any longer as I did once. I know now she's a lady, but the fact of her poverty remains. If she married Bob Van Brandt, she'd be comfortably settled. She'd have ease and position and, oh, of course she'll marry him if he asks her."
"So the whole thing resolves itself down to—"
"To this—if one could only devise a way to prevent his asking her."
"Am I mistaken, or did I hear you say something about putting it brutally, a few moments ago."
"Well, I know it sounds rather horrid, but a desperate case needs desperate medicine."
"Catherine, you have asked for suggestions and advice. My suggestion to Miss Pelham is that she gracefully step down and out. My advice to you is that you resist the temptation to meddle. If Mr. Van Brandt wishes to ask Miss Lang to marry him, he has a man's right to do so. If Miss Lang wishes to marry Mr. Van Brandt after he has asked her, she has a woman's right to do so. Any interference whatsoever would be intolerable. You can take my advice or leave it. But if you leave it, if you attempt to mix in, you will regret it, for you will not be honorably playing the game."
Mrs. Sherman's lips tightened. "That's all very well," she broke out impatiently. "That's the sort of advice men always give to women, and never act on themselves. It's not the masculine way to sit calmly by and let another carry off what one wants. If a man cares, he fights for his rights. It's only when he isn't interested that he's passive and speaks of honorably playing the game. All's fair in love and war! If you were in Amy's place—if the cases were reversed—and you saw something you'd set your heart on being deliberately taken away from you, I fancy you wouldn't gracefully step down and out. At least I don't see you doing it, in my mind's eye, Horatio!"
"Ah, but you miss the point! There's a great difference between claiming one's own and struggling to get possession of something that is lawfully another's. If I were in Miss Pelham's place, and were sure the one I loved belonged to me by divine right, I'd have her—I'd have her in spite of the devil and all his works. But the thing would be to be sure. And one couldn't be sure so long as another claimant hadn't had his chance to be thrown down. When he'd had his chance, and the decks were cleared—then—!"
"Goodness, Frank! I'd no idea you could be so intense. And I'll confess I've never given you credit for so much imagination. You've been talking of what you'd do in Amy's place quite as if you actually felt it. Your performance of the determined lover is really most convincing."
Francis Ronald smiled. "A man who's succeeded in convincing a woman has not lived in vain," he said. "Well, I must be off, Catherine. Good luck to you and to Miss Pelham—but bad luck if either of you dares stick her mischievous finger in other people's pies."
He strode out of the room and the house.
Meanwhile, Martha, industriously engaged in brushing Miss Lang's hair, was gradually, delicately feeling her way toward what was, in reality, the same subject.
"Well, of course, you can have Cora if you want her. She'll be only too glad o' the ride, but do you think—now do you reelly think it's advisable to lug a third party along when it's clear as dish-water he wants you alone by himself an' yourself? It's this way with men. If they set out to do a thing, they gener'ly do it. But believe me, if you put impederments in their way, they'll shoor do it, an' then some. Now all them flowers an' candy that's been comin' here lately so reg'ler, they means business on Mr. Van Brandt's part if pleasure on yours. He's strewin' your path with roses an' pavin' it with Huyler's chocolates, so's some day in the near future he can come marchin' along it, an' walk straight up to the captain's office an' hand in his applercation for the vacancy. Now, the question is as plain as the nose on your face. Do you want him to do it first or do you want him to do it last? It's up to you to decide the time, but you can betcher life it's goin' to be some time, Cora or no Cora, ohne oder mit as our Dutch friend acrost the hall says."
Claire's reflection in the mirror she sat facing, showed a pair of sadly troubled eyes.
"O, it's very puzzling, Martha," she said. "Somehow, life seems all topsy-turvy to me lately. So many things going wrong, so few right."
"Now what, if I may make so bold, is wrong with your gettin' a first-class offer from a well-off, good-lookin' gen'l'man-friend, that's been keepin' comp'ny with you, off an' on, as you might say, ever since you was a child, which shows that his heart's in the right place an' his intentions is honorable. You know, you mustn't let the percession get by you. Life's like standin' on the curbstone watching the parade—at least, that's how it seems to young folks. They hear the music an' they see the banners an' the floats an' they think it's goin' to be a continuous performance. After a while they've got so used to the band a-playin' an' the flags a-wavin' that it gets to be an old story, an' they think that's what it'll be right along, so they don't trouble to keep their eye peeled for the fella with the water-can, which he asked 'em to watch out for him. No, they argue he's good enough in his way, but—'Think o' the fella with the drum!' Or even, it might be, who knows?—the grand one with his mother's big black muff on his head, doin' stunts with his grandfather's gold-topped club, his grandpa havin' been a p'liceman with a pull in the ward. An' while they stand a-waitin' for all the grandjer they're expectin', suddenly it all goes past, an' they don't see nothin' but p'raps a milk-wagon bringin' up the rear, an' the ashfalt all strewed with rag-tag-an'-bobtail, an' there's nothin' doin' in their direction, except turn around an' go home. Now, what's the matter with Mr. Van Brandt? If you marry him you'll be all to the good. No worry about the rent, no pinchin' here an' plottin' there to keep the bills down. No goin' out by the day, rain or shine, traipsin' the street on your two feet when you're so dead tired you could lay down an' let the rest walk over you. Why, lookin' at it from any standpoint-of-view I can't see but it's a grand oppertoonity. An' you're fond of him, ain't you?"
"O, yes, I'm very fond of Mr. Van Brandt. But I'm fond of him as a friend. I couldn't—couldn't—couldn't ever marry him."
"What for you couldn't? It ain't as if you liked some other fella better! If you liked some other fella better, no matter how little you might think you'd ever get the refusal of'm, I'd say, stick to the reel article: don't be put of with substitoots. It ain't no use tryin' to fool your heart. You can monkey with your brain, an' make it believe all sorts of tommyrot, but your heart is dead on to you, an' when it once sets in hankerin' it means business."
Claire nodded unseeingly to her own reflection in the glass.
"Now my idea is," Martha continued, "my idea is, if you got somethin' loomin', why, don't hide your face an' play it isn't there. There ain't no use standin' on the ragged edge till every tooth in your head chatters with cold an' fright. You don't make nothin' by it. If you love a man like a friend or if you love a friend like a man, my advice is, take your seat in the chair, grip a-holt o' the arms, brace your feet, an'—let'er go, Gallagher! It'll be over in a minit, as the dentists say."
"But suppose you had something else on your heart. Something that had nothing to do with—with that sort of thing?" Claire asked.
"What sorter thing?"
"Why—love. Suppose you'd done something unworthy of you. Suppose the sense of having done it made you wretched, made you want to make others wretched? What would you do—then?"
"Now, my dear, don't you make no mistake. I ain't goin' to be drew into no blindman's grab-bag little game, not on your sweet life. I ain'ter goin' to risk havin' you hate me all the rest o' your nacherl life becoz, to be obligin' an' also to show what a smart boy am I, I give a verdick without all the everdence in. If you wanter tell me plain out what's frettin' you, I'll do my best accordin' to my lights, but otherwise—"
"Well—" began Claire, and then followed, haltingly, stumblingly, the story of her adventure in the closet.
"At first I felt nothing but the wound to my pride, the sting of what he—of what they said," she concluded. "But, after a little, I began to realize there was something else. I began to see what I had done. For, you know, I had deliberately listened. I needn't have listened. If I had put my hands over my ears, if I had crouched back, away from the door, and covered my head, I need not have overheard. But I pressed as close as I could to the panel, and hardly breathed, because I wanted not to miss a word. And I didn't miss a word. I heard what it was never meant I should hear, and—I'm nothing but a common—eavesdropper!"
"Now, what do you think of that?" observed Mrs. Slawson. "Now, what do you think of that?"
"I've tried once or twice to tell him—" continued Claire.
"Tell who? Tell Mr. Van Brandt?"
"No, Mr. Ronald."
"O! You see, when you speak o' he an' him it might mean almost any gen'l'man. But I'll try to remember you're always referrin' to Mr. Ronald."
"I've tried once or twice to tell him, for I can't bear to be untruthful. But, then, I remember I'm 'only the governess'—'the right person in the right place'—of so little account that—that he doesn't even know whether I'm pretty or not! And the words choke in my throat. I realize it wouldn't mean anything to him. He'd only probably gaze down at me, or he'd be kind in that lofty way he has—and put me in my place, as he did the first time I ever saw him. And so, I've never told him. I couldn't. But sometimes I think if I did—if I just made myself do it, I could hold up my head again and not feel myself growing bitter and sharp, because something is hurting me in my conscience."
"That's it!" said Martha confidently. "It's your conscience. Believe me, consciences is the dickens an' all for makin' a mess o' things, when they get right down to business. Now, if I was you, I wouldn't bother Mr. Ronald with my squalms o' conscience. Very prob'ly when it comes to consciences he has troubles of his own—at least, if he ain't, he's an exception an' a rare curiosity, an' Mr. Pierpont Morgan oughter buy him for the Museum. When your conscience tells you you'd oughter tell, ten to one you'd oughtn't. Give other folks a chance. What they don't know can't worry 'em. Besides, your just tellin' a thing don't let you out. You can't get clear so easy as that. It's up to you to work it out, so what's wrong is made right, an' do it yourself—not trust to nobody else. You can't square up by heavin' your load offn your own shoulders onto another fella's. You think you feel light coz you done your dooty, when ten to one you done your friend. No! I wouldn't advise turnin' state's everdence on yourself unless it was to save another from the gallus. As it is, you can take it from me, the best thing you can do for that—conscience o' yours, is get busy in another direction. Dress yourself up as fetchin' as you can, go out motorin' with your gen'l'man friend like he ast you to, let him get his perposal offn his chest, an' then tell'm—you'll be a sister to'm."